Modern computer applications provide sighted users with increasingly sophisticated visualizations of information through graphical user interfaces (GUI). The visualizations enable ease of navigation for sighted users having full facility of a pointing device, such as a computer mouse. The computer mouse may be used to intuitively interact with the visualization. As a result, sighted users may quickly navigate through visualizations by clicking on various features illustrated in the visualizations.
For example, in an email application, sighted users may discern relationships among various email messages based on viewing information in the visualizations, such as subject lines of the email messages. In other situations, sighted users may discern relationships among various email messages based on thread groupings illustrated in the visualizations.
These benefits associated with sophisticated visualizations of information are not available to users that are unable to visually inspect the GUI (non-sighted users). Such non-sighted users may be restricted to using keyboard commands to navigate through applications rather than using pointing devices to navigate through the visualizations. Alternatively, non-sighted users may rely on screen readers to recite textual words displayed on the GUI.
For non-sighted users, applications may recite options based on requests by non-sighted users for the computer to read aloud the menus and/or menu items displayed in the GUI. The applications may literally recite each menu and/or menu item that is selected, such as, File, Edit, View, and Create. The non-sighted user may respond by reciting or entering an appropriate command to select a menu and/or menu item. Typically, non-sighted users do not speak the command. Rather, each command may be associated with a number and non-sighted users may use the keyboard to enter the number that corresponds with the selected menu and/or menu item. The application may then recite a selection of options associated with the selected menu and/or menu item. As a result, non-sighted users are provided with options based on lists of menus and/or menu items that do not include relationships discovered from viewing information in visualizations, such as subject lines of email messages. Other drawbacks exist.
In another example, sighted users may be able to view a list of email messages and quickly identify which of the list of email messages are replies to an email message that originated from a particular user. In contrast, non-sighted users may be presented with a listing of received email messages, wherein the email messages are provided in order of receipt. As a result, non-sighted users are not able to identify which of the list of email messages are replies to an email message that originated from a particular user. Various other drawbacks exist.
Other drawbacks exist with these and other known systems.